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Comment by broscillator | Hacker News Reader

In these comments your agency is entirely aimed at negativity. In order to justify this you reframe it as realism.

It's kind of like walking outside with your attention constantly focused on the fact that you might step on dog shit.

If you do this, your agency is pulled away from appreciating a beautiful flower, or interchanging smiles with a pretty person, or seeing a hundred dollar bill off to the side.

The fact that it is true that you can step on dog shit doesn't make it more true than the fact that most of the time you don't step on dog shit, and that you have the agency to walk and go around as if you weren't going to step on dog shit today.

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Your interpretation of my comments is negative. I’m not saying you can’t change your opportunity in life, I’m saying that if luck has anything to do with your success or failure, then it’s all based on luck, and nothing to do with what opportunities you create.

It may will be that I do everything wrong in life and limit my opportunities, and still win the lottery because I tripped and fell on my face and lo and behold there was a winning lottery ticket that someone misplaced.

What I am saying over and over again is increasing your odds of success. Does not change your luck. Just like you cannot change the fact if a coin lands on heads or tails. You have zero agency in that outcome.

It might also be that you find that lottery ticket and don't play it, because you believe you have no agency to do anything with the money anyway.

> Just like you cannot change the fact if a coin lands on heads or tails.

You can, just throw the coin again until it lands the way you want.

> You can, just throw the coin again until it lands the way you want.

Oh, I didn’t realize life is that simple. I can just keep doing things until they turn out the way I want.

There's a glimpse there, beneath the deprecating sarcasm, of beginning to understand the point of the article.

I’m saying you don’t even understand what Cate is talking about because even Cate agrees with me:

https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c...

“ Cate views her own life through a frame of responsibility: she takes responsibility for what happens to her. At the same time, she is genuinely not proud, and genuinely doesn’t think she’s better than anyone else. She credits luck for her good fortune and unusual attributes more than anything else, and is compassionate and curious toward everyone we meet. This is, I think, what sticks with me most.”

Cate highlights positive aspects. Again, your posts focus every time on negativity. This is the point that I'm trying to get across. You talked about cancer, about blame and failure, "doing everything wrong in life and still winning the lottery" (winning the lottery isn't inherently positive, because it's what you do with it that matters).

It is not luck that shifts your mind to highlight these negative aspects, that is where agency takes place. Take care.

> I’m saying that if luck has anything to do with your success or failure, then it’s all based on luck, and nothing to do with what opportunities you create.

Your statement excessively (because it’s non-predictively useless) reductionist.

Yep, it’s absolute luck that that particular sperm and ovum happened to combine, that the pregnancy successfully proceeded, that you were born in a country not at war (I’m guessing), that that car didn’t run off the road and squash you when you were eight, etc. But acknowledging all that doesn’t provide any guidance.

My “woo woo” statement was literally the case: yes some incredible opportunity could sweep by and be missed because you happened to be looking the other way. And that will definitely happen — tant pis. But if you are willing to consider lucky opportunities when you are looking the other way your odds will improve.

Well I default to the views of Cate Hall, who wrote the article, and she agrees that it’s all about luck and little about agency.

https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/things-you-learn-dating-c...

Cate views her own life through a frame of responsibility: she takes responsibility for what happens to her. At the same time, she is genuinely not proud, and genuinely doesn’t think she’s better than anyone else. She credits luck for her good fortune and unusual attributes more than anything else, and is compassionate and curious toward everyone we meet. This is, I think, what sticks with me most.

The way I frame luck in my mind is that there will always be elements of your success which lie outside of your control. The ability to which you can capitalize on opportunities which come from outside of your of control is contingent on factors of your life which exist within the boundaries of your control.

You may have been lucky because a recruiter has reached out to you for a role which you would fit well in, but that's because you've made a conscious effort in dedicating time your craft and to advertising your capabilities.

Luck (or the lack of) is nearly never the sole factor in your successes or your failures.

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